The Angel Of History 

A major, and more recent piece, The Angel of History hints toward both the ‘spines’ of older paintings like eg. Wide Blue, and at the same time the vertical column of Die Then Work Faith, Remember? it is unambiguously dark, both in colour and in tone, or mood: indeed it is one of the darkest paintings in the entire Here Lies corpus.

Like certain other canvases of the series, the quantity of bone here is less than might be guessed at first sight - the vast bulk of the additional material in The Angel of History is made up from smashed fragments of fire grate, along with a few scattered electrical components and several pairs of Kieran’s old spectacles, all deeply embedded in its tortured monochrome surface.

While properly concerned with distinguishing what he does from any aspect of ‘the memorial industry’ - a specific example is (the title) This Is Not A Holocaust Memorial - Kieran would be the first to concede that here with The Angel of History, just this once, the distinction starts to blur. The title is a reference to Walter  Benjamin and his fascinating discussion of a figure by painter Paul Klee called Angelus Novus, now hanging in the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem.

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 203 x 140 cm 

Price:  POA